EVANSVILLE, Ind. (AP) — Evansville Mayor Lloyd Winnecke and City Council leaders prefer a downtown location for a health science education and research center planned by Indiana University’s medical school and three other schools.

The mayor said a team has been quietly working on downtown sites while prospective developers touted competing proposals on the city’s east side and in neighboring Warrick County.

The city has chosen to remain low-key because IU hasn’t made a formal request for proposals yet, Winnecke told the Evansville Courier & Press (http://bit.ly/18QKMhT ).

“Once we see the RFP, we’ll be able to say more about where we’d like to see it. We’ve looked at three, probably four general areas of downtown over the last several months. All of them have strengths and weaknesses. We’ve landed on the one site we think has the most strengths,” Winnecke said.

Winnecke said downtown and the education and research center would be a good match.

“Downtown brings a lot to the project. For the city itself, it offers an infusion of excitement and vitality that would totally change the perception and reality of downtown,” Winnecke said. “The whole vibe changes.”

City Council Vice President Dan Adams, a retired physician and adjunct instructor at the IU School of Medicine-Evansville, agreed the project’s impact on Evansville’s downtown area would be substantial.

“Every person who is trying to have this come to their area knows this,” Adams said. “It’s a most desirable thing.”

IU’s partners in the project are the University of Evansville, the University of Southern Indiana and Ivy Tech Community College.